Hello from Shapeways Community Outreach Coordinator

Hello all! I’m Eleanor, your new Community Outreach Coordinator, reporting for duty. I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself, tell you a little bit about what brought me here, and what I’m excited to work on with you here at Shapeways.

I’m a Brooklyn-based writer and indie-rock musician who is constantly inspired by the maker and do it yourself community. I’m passionate about supporting creative entrepreneurs and helping them build sustainable creative projects, businesses and lives. In 2013 I published my first book, Grow, which is a field guide for creatives to achieve success and sustainability on their own terms. Grow shares practical advice on goal setting, planning, budgeting, marketing, and establishing a business, especially for those looking to grow a passion-project into a sustainable, long-term opportunity. It comes out of my personal experience publishing zines, organizing events, and booking rock shows in the DIY community and turning that experience into a career in museums and creative companies. One thing I’m really looking forward to working on at Shapeways is to work with shop owners to build and share their business skills and make their shops even more successful.

A little bit more about me, I started my career working in arts and culture, first at the Brooklyn Museum and then the Rubin Museum of Art as an educator and public programmer who connect community members with works of art in the museum’s collections and exhibitions. I most recently worked at the New York Foundation for the Arts where I organized professional development programs for creatives all over the United States and helped artists raise funds to support their projects through the organization’s fiscal sponsorship program.

I have a strong interest in the business side of creativity. I got my master’s degree in public administration right down the street from Shapeways’ New York offices at Baruch College, where I learned to stop worrying and love financial and statistical analysis. I also recently completed an introductory course on the Ruby on Rails programming language and web framework.

I’m really excited to be at Shapeways because it brings together my interests and experience in creativity, community, technology, and entrepreneurship. I adore how engaged community and staff members are in embracing the future of innovation and creativity. I’m looking forward to supporting the growth of this community and getting more creators from all different fields and interests involved. I look forward to growing our community of Shapies, supporting regular meet ups organized by community members all around the world, hosting Google hangouts, and spearheading special events that will serve different niches of our diverse and robust community.

Do you have an idea of an event you’d like to be a part of that will engage your community around the possibilities of 3D Printing? Are you a Shapie who would like to be more active as a point person for your community? Please get in touch! I look forward to hearing from, working with, and learning from all of you!

4 comments

Hi Eleanor,
Congratulations on your position at Shapeways! It seems like a great and inspiring place where people can bring their ideas to reality! Shapeways has enabled us to bring something to life that would have been otherwise very difficult on a small scale and we wanted to thank you!

If you are looking for entrepreneurial projects to highlight, we wanted to introduce you to our project – The Burger Lift. Shapeways was invaluable to the process, in allowing us to see our product in tangible form and tweak it as necessary. The Burger Lift metal prototype was done through Shapeways (along with some of the initial plastic versions). You can read about the Burger Lift here:

“From the rapid plastic prototypes, we commissioned several stainless steel prototypes, from Shapeways, based on our final design. ”

If you have any other questions about us, our project, or how we used Shapeways, feel free to reach out to us at contact@burgerlift.com. Our project is currently up and running on Kickstarter (it ends April 14th).

Hi, Jasmine!
Thanks so much for your warm welcome and telling us about the Burger Lift – what a great idea and thanks for using Shapeways for prototyping. So glad to hear that Shapeways is a tool for your entrepreneurship!
Let’s keep in touch!
Eleanor

Welcome to the community. It’s great to see shapeways is continuing their practice of hiring people with diverse creative backgrounds.

I’m an oil painter and am new to the 3D printing world. I like that you reached out and asked who would like to be more active as a point person for our community. I’d love to be more involved, what can I do?

Hi, M.
Thanks so much for your warm welcome and for your interest in being more involved in the Shapeways community! I’m looking for people who would be interested in hosting meet ups and helping to be a point person for Shapeways and those interested in 3D Printing in their creative community.
I’ll send you an email!
Eleanor